The Miss Maplesones and their accomplished parent arrived in the course of the afternoon in a hackney-coach, and accompanied by a most astonishing number of packages. Trunks, bonnet-boxes, muff-boxes and parasols, guitar-cases, and parcels of all imaginable shapes, done up in brown paper, and fastened with pins, filled the passage. Then, there was such a running up and down with the luggage, such scampering for warm water for the ladies to wash in, and such a bustle, and confusion, and heating of servants, and curling-irons, as had never been known in Great Coram-street before. Little Mrs. Tibbs was quite in her element, bustling about, talking incessantly, and distributing towels and soap, like a head nurse in a hospital. The house was not restored to its usual state of quiet repose, until the ladies were safely shut up in their respective bedrooms, engaged in the important occupation of dressing for dinner.
'Are these gals 'andsome?' inquired Mr. Simpson of Mr. Septimus Hicks, another of the boarders, as they were amusing themselves in the drawing-room, before dinner, by lolling on sofas, and contemplating their pumps.
'Don't know,' replied Mr. Septimus Hicks, who was a tallish, white-faced young man, with spectacles, and a black ribbon round his neck instead of a neckerchief - a most interesting person; a poetical walker of the hospitals, and a 'very talented young man.' He was fond of 'lugging' into conversation all sorts of quotations from Don Juan, without fettering himself by the propriety of their application; in which particular he was remarkably independent.
The other, Mr. Simpson, was one of those young men, who are in society what walking gentlemen are on the stage, only infinitely worse skilled in his vocation than the most indifferent artist. He was as empty-headed as the great bell of St. Paul's; always dressed according to the caricatures published in the monthly fashion; and spelt Character with a K.
'I saw a devilish number of parcels in the passage when I came home,' simpered Mr. Simpson.
'Materials for the toilet, no doubt,' rejoined the Don Juan reader.
- 'Much linen, lace, and several pair Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete;With other articles of ladies fair, To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat.'
'Is that from Milton?' inquired Mr. Simpson.
'No - from Byron,' returned Mr. Hicks, with a look of contempt. He was quite sure of his author, because he had never read any other.
'Hush! Here come the gals,' and they both commenced talking in a very loud key.
'Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maplesones, Mr. Hicks. Mr. Hicks -Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maplesones,' said Mrs. Tibbs, with a very red face, for she had been superintending the cooking operations below stairs, and looked like a wax doll on a sunny day.
'Mr. Simpson, I beg your pardon - Mr. Simpson - Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maplesones' - and VICE VERSA. The gentlemen immediately began to slide about with much politeness, and to look as if they wished their arms had been legs, so little did they know what to do with them. The ladies smiled, curtseyed, and glided into chairs, and dived for dropped pocket-handkerchiefs: the gentlemen leant against two of the curtain-pegs; Mrs. Tibbs went through an admirable bit of serious pantomime with a servant who had come up to ask some question about the fish-sauce; and then the two young ladies looked at each other; and everybody else appeared to discover something very attractive in the pattern of the fender.
'Julia, my love,' said Mrs. Maplesone to her youngest daughter, in a tone loud enough for the remainder of the company to hear -'Julia.'
'Yes, Ma.'
'Don't stoop.' - This was said for the purpose of directing general attention to Miss Julia's figure, which was undeniable. Everybody looked at her, accordingly, and there was another pause.
'We had the most uncivil hackney-coachman to-day, you can imagine,'
said Mrs. Maplesone to Mrs. Tibbs, in a confidential tone.
'Dear me!' replied the hostess, with an air of great commiseration.
She couldn't say more, for the servant again appeared at the door, and commenced telegraphing most earnestly to her 'Missis.'
'I think hackney-coachmen generally ARE uncivil,' said Mr. Hicks in his most insinuating tone.
'Positively I think they are,' replied Mrs. Maplesone, as if the idea had never struck her before.
'And cabmen, too,' said Mr. Simpson. This remark was a failure, for no one intimated, by word or sign, the slightest knowledge of the manners and customs of cabmen.
'Robinson, what DO you want?' said Mrs. Tibbs to the servant, who, by way of making her presence known to her mistress, had been giving sundry hems and sniffs outside the door during the preceding five minutes.
'Please, ma'am, master wants his clean things,' replied the servant, taken off her guard. The two young men turned their faces to the window, and 'went off' like a couple of bottles of ginger-beer; the ladies put their handkerchiefs to their mouths; and little Mrs. Tibbs bustled out of the room to give Tibbs his clean linen, - and the servant warning.
Mr. Calton, the remaining boarder, shortly afterwards made his appearance, and proved a surprising promoter of the conversation.